At Whitten's End

Over the last few months since I added magnet locks to the majority of my cabinets, Emma has loved to play in my plastic-ware cabinets that are magnet-free, with her favorite cabinet being the one where our cups are stored. In the last couple of weeks, she realized that she can crawl inside and close the door behind her (like I used to do in our cereal cabinets, mom!). Whether she's playing by herself (she takes toys inside with her!) or is playing peekaboo with me, she loves playing inside. I was surprised a few days ago to hear noises of panic instead of delight coming from inside the cabinet. I opened the door to find her stuck (in her perception, anyway!) on the SECOND shelf! I grabbed the camera and captured a quick photo... There is NEVER a dull moment when Emma is around!

Kayla's dinosaur webkinz licks on Emma! Emma enjoying doodling on her new Doodle Pro Daddy with his girls admiring his new Harley calendar from Kayla! Kayla karaoke-ing to her new Little Mermaid CD Princess Emma emerging from her new castle! She wanted little to do with her gifts as she was too busy playing in her tent! I woke up just before 6am to get breakfast in the oven. When I came 45 minutes later to take it out of the oven, I heard the pitter patter of 7 y.o. feet behind me! So much for getting more sleep! We then woke Brad and Emma and enjoyed our time of seeing what Santa brought, going through our stockings, and opening presents. Santa brought Kayla a karaoke machine & a Webkinz dinosaur. He brought Emma a 2-person princess play tent and a play microphone. We were all very blessed this season with...

On December 18th, Brad and I had a rare opportunity to have a 3d/4d glimpse at our unborn son. In spite of all my best efforts, he wasn't willing to change positions very much and never even gave us a glimpse at his face... which was down to his chest and covered by not only his hands but also- the majority of the time- covered by his legs. We will be returning for a complimentary session on Jan 2nd and hope to see what his face looks like on that visit! Oh, they did see that he already has a significant amount of hair on his head! Here he is in the best photograph the sonographer was able to capture: That same day, my newest sister-in-law, Laura (& David!) had their 20 week ultrasound and found out that they're having a GIRL!! They've decided to name her Elizabeth Jeanette and she's due- ironically- on May 8th (which is my other niece, Elizabeth's birthday!) Congratulations, David & Laura!

On December 22nd, we ventured out on a very cold night (for NC!) so that we could establish a new family tradition of attending Burlington's Christmas in the Park. They had a live Nativity, Horse "sleigh" rides, carousel & train rides, and free hot cocoa & cookies! Not to mention Santa who roamed throughout the park! We enjoyed feeding the animals at the Nativity and- if not for the cold- had a fabulous evening. We look forward to doing this again next year! (I regret that Brad was the carrier of the camera, so he wasn't captured in any of our photos... thanks for all the photographs sweety!)

We have been working diligently for the last year+ on completing Kayla's first AWANA Sparky book. On December 10th, she said the entire 23rd Psalm and completed her first book. She worked so hard to complete this goal and we're so proud of her!

We headed to Illinois for the week of Thanksgiving. We spent the first half of the week with my family in Rock Island, then we headed to Forsyth on Thanksgiving Day to spend the second half with Brad's family. Sadly, Grandpa Ahlrich passed away that week, so we also had a funeral while in Forsyth. Grandma Whitten turned 90 during that weekend as well. A few pics taken in Rock Island: A few pics taken in Forsyth:

We had our first snow here in NC one morning a week or so before Thanksgiving. As always, it melted within hours of sunrise, but my girls enjoyed it while it lasted. Here they are playing before Kayla went to school that morning...

The nursery is slowly but surely coming together.... actually it's painted, furnitured, decorated, and now only needs the changing pad attached to the changing table and the baby's name letters put up on the wall (oh, and it needs cleaned out!) Here's a Colts corkboard project that I completed using some of the flannel blankets that compliment my nursery set. Each board is 1ftx1ft to give you an idea of dimension. Also, the horseshoe is a real horseshoe that I painted and the COLTS letters are wooden letters that I painted! Thanks to my friend, Stephanie, for her insight and inspiration! As an aside for my fellow Colts fanatics... I realize that I'm missing Anthony Gonzalez's and Jeff Saturday's numbers. I lost (temporarily) one of my iron-on "1"s and didn't want the numbers to be uneven, so I have yet to put their numbers up on the board after the 1 was located!

It has been such a long time since I posted. This last month and a half has been a bit looney! I have uploaded a number of pics and hope to get some posted here soon!